US embassy cable - 05AMMAN6612

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 AMMAN 006612 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/17/2010 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, ECON, JO 
SUBJECT: KING READS RIOT ACT TO PARLIAMENT, GOVERNMENT, THE 
GOVERNING CLASS 
 
Classified By: Charge David Hale, Reasons 1.4 (B) & (D) 
 
1.  (C) Summary.  The King convened Jordan's political class 
on August 17 to an open meeting and read them the riot act. 
In particular, he demanded more responsible and constructive 
behavior by members of parliament, who continue to threaten 
to block the King's and government's reform agenda.  This 
hastily arranged event, on the eve of the King's trip to 
Russia, reflects the King's growing frustration at the 
inability of parliament and cabinet to cooperate and perform. 
 It may be prepatory to dissolution of parliament this fall 
and early elections, now scheduled for 2007, based on a new, 
temporary electoral law.  In our initial contacts, ministers 
and MPs said they accepted the criticism and felt chastened, 
but the underlying political problems stymieing the reform 
agenda remain unchanged.  End summary. 
 
2.  (C) At short notice, on August 17, Jordan's King Abdullah 
convoked most of Jordan's political class, including cabinet 
ministers, leading members of parliament, senior advisors, 
and former prime ministers.  The purpose was to give voice to 
his increasing levels of frustration with domestic political 
rancor.  Attendees described to Charge a sobering and 
unexpected event charged with the King's controlled anger. 
Immediately after dropping this political bomb, the King 
boarded a plane for a postponed visit to Russia.  The text of 
his remarks was released to the press. 
 
3. (C) The King said he had asked the executive and 
legislative branches to work cooperatively as a team, but 
instead found them engaged in a "tug-of-war and 
arm-twisting."  MPs may not be satisfied with the 
government's performance, he said, but they should know that 
Jordanians are dissatisfied with the deputies.  He complained 
that whenever Jordan faced a problem, each party engaged in 
blaming others or standing aside, forcing the King to 
intervene, "as if responsibility is his own to shoulder." 
However, it was unacceptable for the King to have to resolve 
"every detail" or shoulder all responsibility alone.  He 
criticized officials who blamed him anytime their action had 
negative results.  The King was especially harsh toward 
former senior officials: "everyone of you should know that 
when you leave office, you are not being exempted from 
responsibility.  On the contrary, you are a reserve soldier 
who should have a sense of responsibility toward the homeland 
that honored you with such a high position."  To say that 
everything is good while you are in authority, and then claim 
all is wrong when you are out of office, he added, is 
unacceptable.  (These comments were directed at several 
former prime ministers.)  Noting that criticism is easy, the 
King said few had come forward with alternative solutions. 
Citing unemployment as a subject of political criticism, the 
King said in fact the problem was not a lack of jobs but a 
culture in which Jordanians refused to accept vocational or 
manual work, hoping instead "wasta" (favoritism) would win 
them a desk job.  He also took a swipe at West Amman's salon 
rumor mill, which spread gossip and false news to the foreign 
press to serve personal agendas, as did Jordan's weekly 
scandal sheets.  Denying once again that there was a hidden 
agenda to resettle Palestinians in Jordan, the King said the 
best defense against making Jordan an alternative homeland to 
the Palestinians ) and he said there was no such plot ) was 
teamwork in the effort to continue along the path of reform, 
modernization, and development, and passage of the 
legislation needed to do so. 
 
4.  (C) While the immediate provocation for the King's 
comments is unclear, his frustration level had increased 
markedly of late.  He had sacrificed his close aide, Finance 
Minister Awadallah, and strengthened the conservative East 
Bank wing of the cabinet to satisfy parliamentary opinion, 
but found he had only whetted the deputies' appetite for 
noisy opposition.  His two personal priorities for the brief 
summer session, passage of an anti-corruption bill and 
ratification of the Article 98 agreement, had met with 
ill-informed but effective opposition.  He had heard the 
salon circuit talk that his handling of parliament had shown 
him to disadvantage.  The two royal commissions working on 
the next phase of reform, regionalization and the national 
agenda, were at loggerheads.  On the King's behalf, the 
Deputy Director of General Intelligence has been trying 
unsuccessfully to mediate between the heads of the two 
bodies, the authoritarian Senate President al-Rifai and the 
liberal Deputy Prime Minister al-Muasher.  Key members of the 
national agenda commission were engaged in a public fight 
over whether or not they could consider proposals requiring 
constitutional amendments ) a debate which reignited popular 
fears that the entire exercise was a U.S.-driven effort to 
turn Jordan over to the Palestinians. 
 
5.  (C) Two of the recipients of the monarch's ire, perhaps 
not surprisingly, told Charge the next day the King was 
right.  Ex-Speaker and current MP Saad Srour said he hoped 
the King's remarks would provoke MPs to debate national 
issues more constructively, and get them to focus less on 
their personal positions and the exchange of favors.  He also 
hoped the existing parliament would pass a new electoral law 
that would produce a parliament more responsive to political 
programs, and less subject to personal agendas.  But if it 
failed to do so, Srour recalled that every time Jordan had 
changed its electoral law, it was done on the basis of a 
"temporary law" ) i.e., a royal decree -  and while 
parliament was dissolved;  sitting MPs were simply unlikely 
to reform themselves out of office.  Minister for Government 
Performance al-Ma'aytah told Charge the King's obvious fury 
was directed at the cabinet as much as at the parliament, and 
she acknowledged that the cabinet had drifted in August into 
inaction and internal bickering.  Another MP, Abdul Karim 
al-Dughmi and a major opposition force in parliament to the 
King, was less contrite.  However, he did expect that the 
King's tongue-lashing would produce a greater measure of 
cooperation when parliament returns. 
 
6.  (C) Comment:  The King accurately described the summer 
political atmosphere in Jordan.  Whether it was a 
constructive step to give public voice to his frustrations 
remains to be seen, but he has gotten everyone's attention 
and distanced himself in public from a discredited political 
class (the latest poll showed 8 percent popularity for the 
Badran government).  If parliament does not rise to his 
challenge and pass legislation needed to advance Jordan's 
reforms, he has also set the stage for an early dissolution 
of the legislature (its natural term ends in 2007) and early 
elections based on a new and as yet unscripted electoral law. 
 The King is well aware that such a step will be watched 
closely, at home and abroad, for evidence that it is a step 
forward, not backward, toward greater political participation 
and representation. 
HALE